MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.

3/24 Quade on roster moves

Darwin Barney has had an impressive spring camp and appears to have passed Blake DeWitt on the Cubs’ depth chart at second base. This will be Barney’s first Opening Day on a big league roster; he batted .299 last season at Iowa and was hitting .359 this spring.

“He’s played himself into significant time and, it’s Spring Training,” manager Mike Quade said. “[Barney] is making progress. He does a lot of things outside of the batter’s box that you really like. He’s given himself every chance to be an important part of this infield. Now we’ll go north and see what happens in April.”

DeWitt has struggled. He’s been playing only second base this spring but will now play some third because the Cubs may need to use him as a backup there.

“We’ll be patient with him,” Quade said of DeWitt. “He’s 25 years old. He’s a .260 lifetime big league hitter and we’ll expect him to get a lot better.

“We want to give him a chance to develop as much as he could at second base,” Quade said. “That’s still a work in progress, there’s no question. He did a good job for us last year and his numbers at the big league level were good. … He needs to get better and he will.”

Reed Johnson, a non-roster invitee on the Cubs for the second time, also made the Opening Day roster. He was hitting .231. Fernando Perez, acquired from the Rays in the Matt Garza deal, hit .143 in 16 games and was optioned to Triple-A Iowa.

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14 Comments

That’s nice Q but you never addressed why you optioned Bobby Scales instead of DeWitt. He’s going to run out of options and end up being Mark DeRosa-esque for the Cardinals, Brewers, or Reds and burning us.

DeWitt did a good job for us last year? Joyce DeWitt could have done a better job. And now DeWitt is getting time in at 3B? Wouldn’t it be more practical to let DeWitt discover his “Sandberg latent talent” in the minors while Scales fills in at 3B and 2B? It appears that Quade is falling into the “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you” camp and will not rock the Hendry boat. So, Barney is now the STARTING second baseman? Let’s give Quade some credit for at least doing that much, after all he was probably TOLD by king Hendry that he must keep DeWitt on the team saving further embarrasment. Hey Quade…what’s good for Perez is good for DeWitt, they need to play…in the minors.

Why do I have a man-crush on a short balding tufty bearded guy who looks more like Dr Evil than Dr Evil? Because he HUSTLES.

So Q has fallen into the gutless “cannot challenge the Great Behemoth Hendry” ways of his predecessor then… DeWitt has no place on the roster until he hits and defends at MLB level. To send down both Moore and Scales and keep “Half” Witt is beyond laughable. Nowhere in this article does it address how you can send down two guys with Hustle, ok defense and good averages and keep DeWitt. Why invite guys to camp if having hit over .300 you are going to release them?

But nowhere near as ridiculous as the impending sending down of Castillo (currently 12-17), releasing Max Ramirez and continuing the Hendry and Quade love-in with Hill.

Gutless… pure GUTLESS Hendry.

Never mind, we will have newer shinier toilets to hurl into this year.

Once again, the Cubs making moves that make no-sense. Why invite a player to participate in Spring Training, if you already made out your mind of not putting him on the roster, no matter how good he performs? Scott Moore deserves to be on the roster, he was performing. Scales should be on the roster, he was performing as well.. but, we keep Johnson, Fukudome, DeWitt…??

Carrie, I’m a fan of your blog, but is there any chance that you could ask the questions that need to be answered…?

Why keep DeWitt and send down/release Scales and Moore? Surely the only way to improve woeful almost inept defence is in AAA not as a bench player. Similarly he needs enough AAA ABs to get his bat a low hotter.

Fans need to know these answers from the Management, not the fluffy cuddly stuff!

Hendry, the same genious that cast off Casey McGhee and Jake Fox. PLEASE people do take this comment as if I think the these two players are the second coming of Mike Shcmidt or Babe Ruth however over the last few seasons with an evident need for depth at both 3B and 1B with Ramirez becoming more prone to injury and D. Lee on the down side of his career both McGhee and Fox would have been well suited for the corners at least in a temporary way, be at least almost productive if not more so than any “fill-ins” Hendry put out there AND cost about 9 million less than Hendry’s hand-picked “Savior Of The Day” Carlos Pena. Now, can someboday explain to US FANS how Hill, Baker, DeWitt make for a better BASEBALL TEAM than Castillo, Scales and Moore? Old slogan: “It’s about Winning” New slogan: “It’s about keeping Hendry”

DeWitt is 25, batted .270 with the Dodgers last year, and is a work in progress. Scales is 33, is not on the 40-man roster, and, despite being a wonderful person, great in the clubhouse and perfect teammate, is looked at as a backup. DeWitt can start, and has more potential up side.

But Barney has now surpased DeWitt so let DeWitt’s work in progress continue at AAA not in the majors. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander right? Then kids that actually are better than DeWitt at other positions should be given the same opportunity to play on the big club. I.e. Castillo (over Hill). I don’t think any of us fans are saying Scales is the answer to second base just that HE (even without more potential upside) is better suited to help the 2011 club than DeWitt. DeWitt had a BAD spring no history of being “great”, I’m sorry but being 25 and hitting .270 for the Dodgers and having the ability to start does not make anybody too valuable to be sent to AAA.

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